Sportsmen frequently hunt game animals in remote areas where roads, trails, and other cleared paths are distant or not well maintained. When an animal is downed deep within wooded, rocky, or mountainous terrain, the sportsman must exert great effort to transport the animal from the wilderness back to a vehicle, cabin, or other destination from which the animal can be more easily moved. Many game animals are often large and heavy, so dragging or carrying the animal is difficult and unwieldy even after field dressing.
To address these issues, sporting equipment providers have developed relatively lightweight wheeled hand carts that can be carried or otherwise transported into the wilderness. For example, a cart may be collapsible and made of tubular frame members for easier transport. When needed, the cart may be assembled or unfolded and may then be used to support an animal's body or other hunting equipment as the sportsman pulls it back from the hunt. These carts save considerable effort but have difficulty traversing rough terrain. Usually, the carts have little or no suspension and have rigid axles, similar to a wheeled hand truck or dolly. This design helps to limit the weight, size, and cost of the cart, but it also makes it burdensome to get the cart and animal over rocks, logs, ditches, and other common obstacles in the wilderness. As a result, obstacles may cause the cart to get stuck or cause the load to tip over, and the sportsman may have to counter-productively take longer and more time-consuming routes to reach his or her destination to avoid getting the cart stuck. Additionally, most hunting or utility carts have one- or two-wheeled designs with large wheels and a high center of gravity. This may cause issues when traveling over rough terrain since they are easily tipped over or put high stress on the wheels, causing them to break.
There is therefore a need for improvements in off-road transportation equipment, particularly for carts that may be used to transport game or other heavy loads after a hunt.